I know the major issues with anti-piracy laws has caused problems recently and that simulcasting would not completely stop piracy anymore than SOPA or PIPA. however if Cruchyroll or similar sites did more simulcasting wouldn't it slow down anime piracy. First off Fansubers would be unnecessary since the anime would be translated legally and Fansubers don't get paid anyway. Causing the ones whose only purpose is to help the anime addicts and otaku feed their addiction to quite. Second if its being shown for free like a TV station then only the obsessed collectors would feel the need to keep it illegally. Third if the popularity of an anime can be monitored by the number of downloads than create a more accurate market. of hard copies (DVD / BD) that are actually popular by census rather than just guessing and hoping people like it.

I know the major issues with anti-piracy laws has caused problems recently and that simulcasting would not completely stop piracy anymore than SOPA or PIPA. however if Cruchyroll or similar sites did more simulcasting wouldn't it slow down anime piracy.

It would (and I think has) decrease piracy, but it would never stop it. Crunchyroll could post 480p episodes for free with no commercials (which wouldn't be economically feasible) on the same day they air in Japan, and there would still be people pirating the same anime. They would do it because it wasn't 720p/1080p for free. They would do it because they think fansubs are superior to professional subs. They would do it because they think they have the right to the uncensored version for free (despite people in Japan not even getting it for free).

I believe piracy can never be eliminated, only controlled. The best method is what I call the "carrot and the stick" approach. Make the legit product easier to obtain and better. Make the illegal material more difficult to obtain, degrade it in some way, and/or penalize it.

On the "carrot" side, for shows where CR's contract allows them to simulcast after the first station in Japan airs an episode, they can already beat fansubbers in getting the episode out to subscribers. The advantage they have is getting the episode in advance to work on the subtitles, while fansubbers have to wait for a raw to be provided for a broadcast recording, and then work like the devil to get it out ASAP.

Crunchyroll can also provide a more stable source. No problems with clicking on a link and finding the video has been taken down. No problems with finding subs are taking a while to come out because a group has lost interest in the series.

Legitimate sites can have apps on devices that have curated app stores, while a site providing pirated material never can.

On the "stick" side, Google's recent move to lower the ranking of sites that receive legitimate removal requests is one move in that direction. (I am not certain how this will affect sites that stream fansubs, however, as all of those seem to use third party sites for hosting videos).

A more draconian approach is SOPA, which would essentially killed the domain registrations for such sites, meaning if the average user clicked on pirateanime.com (not an actual site, at least when I posted this), they would get a 404 error, and those sites would quickly disappear from search engine listings.

The penalties part would be tougher financial and/or criminal penalties for sites that are built around nothing but linking to pirated material. (Despite its name, legitimate torrents can also be found at pirate bay. By contrast, most fansub sites have absolutely zero links to authorized content). Frankly, for the "stick" side, I think making pirated material more difficult to obtain works better than punishing those that try to obtain it, and is also far easier to implement in a manner that affects more people.

I don't agree with anti-piracy laws. While I understand companies can lose potential money because of stealing, that only applies to people who weren't going to steal and pay for it, however thanks to the internet over half to almost all of the internet users have stolen even if they might be unaware including some of us. Since media piracy is so simple like jay walking, or driving over the speed limit., a lot of people don't see the problem, or even care. just like coping a VHS tape from the video store back in the 80's However video stores are almost extinct thanks to Redbox and Netflix the media industry will have to find a way to do what they did in order to make piracy less attractive.

It would reduce it for sure, if only by people like me who simulcast everything they can on here and then watch fansubs for those things that they can't get legally.

For example in the current season I am watching 9 currently airing series, of which 5 are available here on crunchyroll, but the other 4 I can't watch legally.
If all those series were available to simulcast legally here in the UK I wouldn't use fansubs for any of them.

But equally surely, it wouldn't prevent it as alas some people are too addicted to their illegal sources.

i dislike the fact that japanese can watch any anime broadcasted for free whilst i have to pay to see shows i am not even sure i would like or not....

How are they watching for free? Aren't they paying a cable bill?

Besides, you technically watch any anime broadcast for free. Granted it's either illegal or in a low definition format. I pay for a CR anime access because I already know what I'm getting. A mixed bag in high def qualities. Regular cable television is the same, but do you not pay for it because of shows you might not like? No, you pay for it all or go without it. Here on CR, you have a choice to pay or watch entirely for free unless the show is access members only.

Thankfully Crunchyroll has woken up to the UK market, which now gives us a huge selection of shows. I certainly prefer paying a small charge for advert-free 1080p content. Aside from Crunchyroll, Funimation tends to region-block most of its newer stuff (ie Index)and Anime-on-Demand.com only has a handful of shows (though its got Persona).

Biggest problems are availability and region-blocking. For example I'm having to watch Hyouka via fan-subs because I can't get a proper stream, and most of the time the fan-sub stream looks like someones chewed it :-P

It'll slow it down, but piracy is here until the earth explodes. Even if they make better DMR, betters servers people can't hack easily, more secure internet connections, there will aways be a computer wiz that'll break all that. The only way to stop it is to ban computers, and that's NEVER gonna happen.